Because I loved you, I thought I could peel whole pages
off the calendar and burn your name into all the flesh
of coming seasons and yet not be touched by it,
and that you would leave a light shining when you came.
 
Once again I become your servant, nursemaid, protector;
see you expecting and inviting, not lying on formica: white
and all alone; then me still waiting for a miracle to set us free.
 
How we had eloped into that solitude, at first; how we
had forgotten everything short life had taught us: that god
keeps a running sword well heated; how we began 
long ago, it seems, living this nostalgia.
 
When you prey on me to let all of you out and yet leave
the moans behind me, I hear one scream, grow as loud
as a stumper's sermon on repeal, or an apostle's speech
on what's not allowed, or the doctor's precise whispered view
on all the last things we're not supposed to feel:
 
       like hope or the hands that knot the shroud.

 

 

John J. Mundt is a poet and writer living in New York City. Previously published work has appeared in The New York Quarterly, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Euphony, SNReview, Ink, and Change, among others. He has a degree in communications from St. Bonaventure University and a Master’s in media from New York University.

  August 2005